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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ali Chen who wrote (36018)	8/15/1998 12:04:00 AM
From: Time Traveler	Respond to of 1572778

Ali, No, it does not bother me that DEC's Alpha runs at 400-500 MHz on 0.35um technology. If we constraint Alpha to x86 compatibility, it would not even run faster than the Power PC. With x86 backwards compatibility, both AMD and Intel have achieved miracles. Did you hear Steve Job is hyping about his new cheap Macs running faster than Intel's 450MHz P-IIs? What a joke! As an engineer like yourself, I also despise the archaic x86. For something small, like embedded control systems, I can redesign it to suit my liking, but PC infrastructure has grown into a colossus. I have no choice but to settle on x86. Remember, in this case, it takes two to tango, the software and the hardware. Time Traveler Ps. By the way, where have you been missing for a few weeks?

To: Ali Chen who wrote (36018)	8/15/1998 12:36:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572778

Ali - Re: "DEC Alpha processors are running at 500 and 600MHz?" Thanks for once again illustrating your lack of understanding of complex issues. DEC's ALPHA chip is a pure RISC processor - designed with a very simple but efficient architecture. By virtue of this clean design, it is a straightforward matter to end up with a very fast clock toggle rate with few speed path restrictions. Intel's x86 CPU, on the other hand, has a tremendous amount of excess baggage since it carries along rather crude architectural features that were incorporated when really fast clock speeds were not achievable due to process restriction. I'll educate you a little, Ali - since you so badly need it - the x86 CPU was architected when gate lengths were about 2 (TWO) microns with a maximum clock speed of only about 10 MHz - using a pure N-channel process, one layer of metal. The inefficient x86 architecture was predicted to be a loser by all the industry geniuses - Michael Slater of MDR in particular - as well as all the MORP manufacturers (MORP = MY OWN RISC PROCESSOR). Wake up and read this Ali - Intel beat them ALL - MIPS, POWERPC, SPARC, you name it. Alpha has a faster chip, no argument there - but who cares? DEC went out of business - sold to Compaq, in case you were asleep. Paul

To: Ali Chen who wrote (36018)	8/15/1998 12:44:00 AM
From: Yousef	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572778

Ali, Re: "Despite the "inferior" 0.35um lithography, DEC Alpha processors are running at 500 and 600MHz?" Nice try, Ali ... remember, it's the "architecture thing" that you keeping "blabbing" about (again and again). Now if you want to talk about inferior processes, let's talk about AMD's .25um process that has a hard time just hitting 350mhz. This is probably close to 6 sigma away from their "mean" frequency ... Wonder if AMD will have any delivery problems ?? Make It So, Yousef